Wild Evening... Oh my...

[brotherjack]

So, after being jumped for smelling bad twice already this bow season, I go down to wal-mart and pickup some of this scent-killer stuff, and a bottle of buck lure. Maybe a waste of money, but for less than $20, I figure worth a try.

Late this afternoon, I spray myself and my gear down with this scent-killer, hang up a strip of old sock with buck lure slathered on it, and sit down in my most comfortable folding chair (with footrest even!) behind a nice little natural ground blind. Got my crossbow in my lap, and I'm ready. Bring on the deer.

Hours go by. No deer.

About the time the sun has gone over the mountains, I'm scanning the field, and just at the edge of the treeline, I spy a monster white-tail buck! I am pretty useless for judging antler size, but I got a buck that grossed 150-something last year, and this guy was in that league. I don't care about antler size really, but big is always a bonus. After a few minutes, big boy comes on out, with 7 or 8 smaller bucks in tow. All but the little spiker in the crowd were big enough for me!

I stuff my heart back down my chest, and grit my teeth and hang on as they slowly approach. The big guy stopped and went around behind a stand of trees about 50 yards to my left, about the same time I hear rustling in the trees behind me. I try not to panic as the doe walks through the breeze blowing gently across me. I suppose the scent-killer did something good, because she passed 15 yards away and didn't spook.

I grit my teeth and hold out for a buck (even though it's either sex archery). The spiker walks to about 18 yards out. On the off chance that I don't get any other shots, I dial the sight on my crossbow to 20 yards and wait. Sure enough, a goregous 4 pointer comes in nice and close, and starts drinking from a puddle.

About this time, I hear 2 bucks start sparing about 18 yards to my right, and see movement in the trees indicating more coming out. I figure the little 4 point is big enough for me, and ever so slowly raise the crossbow. Safety off. Wait for him to move that leg forward while standing perfect broadside... how could this be any better for my first buck with a bow, I don't know. Part of me wants to hold out for the big guy, but honestly, I'm a meat hunter, and a healthy 4 point is gonna taste better than an old guy anyway.

Line up the dot on his side, leg in perfect spot, pull the trigger. Deer scatter everywhere, and I start kicking myself, because I still had the scope set for 20 yards (totally forgot to dial it back in) and the 4 point was probably 12 yards away. He runs off with the arrow sticking in one side and out the other, about 4 inches higher than I intended it to. I think it's still low enough to clip the top of the lungs, since it wasn't high enough to cut the spine, though I worry that it did clip the spine since at that yardage, I would have expected a full passthrough. Nothing to do but grit my teeth and wait. I get shaky as the adrenalin starts to wear off. Re-load crossbow just because.

15 minutes later, a nice little 3 point comes walking to within 25 yards. 2 white-tail limit for archery season in my part of region 4, and I got tags in my pocket, this could be a good night! I try to get lined up, but he turns his butt my way before I do, and grazes his way out of range without giving me a shot. Oh well.

30 minutes after that, another 3 point comes in to about 8 yards. Adrenalin like a freight train. Tripple-check that scope set for 10 yards, and line up on him. Wait... wait... wait for him to hit perfect broadside... wait for the leg to move forward.... squeeze the trigger... hard.... oh, man, am I ever a world class looser! Safety on the crossbow still on. Deer saw me move, and high tails it.

So, another 15 minutes or so go by, and by this time shooting light is pretty much gone. I pack up and get out the flashlight. I'm not planning a deep woods search, but there's a good enough chance I got both lungs I wanna have a peek in case he's just inside the treeline. Long story short, blood trail starts about 60 yards from point of impact, but too faint to follow in the dark, so I had to come home with no deer. But, there is a blood trail (which I marked), so I'm confident that tomorrow I'll have my first archery buck in the truck in short order.

I am a blessed man, no doubt. And all you more experienced bow/x-bow hunters can make fun of me now, I know it was pretty much amateur night (and hey, I admit I am an amateur - but I'm learning!). But man, oh man, what a night!

BTW- the scent stuff on both counts has made a believer out of me!

[Jimbo]

Great story Bro'jack !! Like trying to pass shoot ducks when their flying in from all directions. Good luck tomorrow !

[Thunderstix]

Sure sounds to me like you have you first buck thi s year! Hope it didn't rain.

[Steeleco]

Good luck tracking it down, a new day of excitement, how'd you sleep?????

[brotherjack]

Well, of course I didn't sleep very well! And nope, no rain. I wouldn't have left the field if there was a chance of that.

And I'm not given up yet, but I'm feeling pretty hopeless at the moment. Here's the scoop:

Blood trail starts about 60-80 yards from point of impact. Faint and very hard to follow - a few blood fleks every 10-20 feet, with the odd break of 20 yards or so. Spent hours on hands and knees looking at each blade of grass. Darn deer didn't follow any game trails at all, just blasted straight cross-country through the bush. Luckly, it ran a vaguely straight line, which helped a lot.

About 300 yards or so along the trail, we found the arrow (!?!?!), bright red with blood. You'd think the blood trail would pick up after that, but it actually went cold for a hundred yards or so. An hour of searching, and we found it again. Going up a very steep hill. What in the heck is a deer with a Muzzy punched clean through it doing climbing super steep hills nearly 500 yards from the point of impact? At this point, I started wondering if I somehow managed to run the arrow through without doing any mortal damage.

On the way up the hill, the blood spatter got farther apart, and the spots were thicker - usually with a whole spattering of quite a few drops at each point. Stopping to rest every 10-20 yards maybe?

And then, the trail just went cold. Spent 3 hours on hands and knees looking around, and nothing. Spent another while looking around to see if it was lying anywhere near, and nada. Wife had a doctors appointment, so we had to come home.

Only thing I know left to try, is run a grid for half a mile in any direction and see if that gets anything. After hours of painstakingly looking at each blade of grass, I'm fairly confident that the blood trail either ended at the last puddle of blood we found, or the deer backtracked one of the two.

So, you more experienced guys - what you think? I'm not giving up yet - going back out later to look some more - but the yardage the deer ran, and the fact that it was climbing steep ugly stuff when I lost the trail doesn't make me feel very good about the whole situation. :(

[sksman]

Too bad! But good try, buddy!

[mainland hunter]

thats unfortunate, at least you're making a great effort to recover it. a lot of guys wouldn't so hopefully it pays off still

[brotherjack]

thats unfortunate, at least you're making a great effort to recover it. a lot of guys wouldn't so hopefully it pays off still

I'm hoping still. I'm from the 'If you're gonna shoot it, you better go find it' camp. I won't give up on it till I'm as sure as I can possibly be that I didn't mortally wound it.

[Steeleco]

I did similar to a nice black bear a few years ago, I understand how you must be feeling, but you can feel good about the fact that your doing everything you can to find it. I'd be inclined to think that if you don't find it tonight, either it's going to be OK of the predators have already got it. Mother nature is a very efficient machine!!

[rock]

Well I see brotherjack is a believer in cover scent even for whitetails, great storey, it's just unfortunate things worked out the way it did, I give you all the credit for working so hard at recovering your animal, sometimes that blood trail can seem to dissappear, but the only problem with whitetails if not hit properly, they can go quite a distance, rule of thumb with deer is if they go up a steep incline there usually not hit as well as you would hope and once they gell up it's like looking for a ghost I feel for ya I've been there. P.S you must know a good farmer.

[rrfred]

hi- tough to judge the whole situation but my best guess is that you may have caught the non vital- small gap between upper lungs and spine, maybe caught the shoulder blade, as the bolt should have passed rite thru if no bone was hit. whitetails can back track so a reversal of his direction may have taken place. If the last blood trail was fresh, maybe a last look in a grid search would be useful, if for nothing else to give you the reassurance that you made a reasonable excellent effort to retrive. if the predators and scavengers are not around in the next day or so keep a lookout for a deer moving a little slow and gimpy. Used to be a hard core bowhunter, about 12 years ago I bumped into fellow bowhunter while bowhunting who had hit his young buck the the nite before, we joined up, looked around and after 2 hours I saw the little guy bedded in some low bushes, called the guy over and he arrowed it, recovered it- his first deer. His first hit had been low and clipped a small artery in the bucks front leg, was enough to slow him down and the distance travelled was around 400 yds- if I recall. good luck. rrfred

[Geo.338]

I have been in your shoes.I am sure many others on here have also.I arrowed a black bear one time and lost the blood trail ,it was evening and darkness made tracking any longer impossible and I too had a bad sleep.The next morning I took my dog out with me ,just a mongrel but she had a better nose than I and before long I had my first bowkill bruin.If you have a dog or know someone who has you might try it.I might add a friend of mine tried it with mixed success.His dog was gored by a big blactail.Good Luck and don't give up yet.

[brotherjack]

Ok, so I just have to hang my head and go stand in the corner for a while. No deer, and not really any chance of getting it before the crows and coyotes do, if it's dead, which I actually don't think it is.

After going over it a hundred times in my head, I keep coming back to the fact that one of two mortal wounds could have happened with where the arrow went through: broadhead sliced the top of the lungs, or it could have gotten the main artery back there. If either were the case, he shouldn't have had it in him to be climbing that kind of steep and ugly terrain hundreds of yards away from the point of impact. I can't know for sure, but my 99% conclusion is that I just wounded him, for which I feel pretty rotten.

I tried looking with my dogs too, and no luck. They sniffed around the blood I'd already found, but didn't find anything new (not that I'd claim any of them to be any kind of trackers or anything).

So, if experience is what you get when you don't have any - I just got some.

:(

[brotherjack]

hi- tough to judge the whole situation but my best guess is that you may have caught the non vital- small gap between upper lungs and spine, maybe caught the shoulder blade, as the bolt should have passed rite thru if no bone was hit. whitetails can back track so a reversal of his direction may have taken place. If the last blood trail was fresh, maybe a last look in a grid search would be useful, if for nothing else to give you the reassurance that you made a reasonable excellent effort to retrive.

That's my conclusion I think (non-vital hit). Too far back to hit a shoulder blade unless it was the one on the far side, but he ran hard and fast so I don't think so. I'm guessing maybe I centered on a rib or something?

The whole last leg of the blood trail was dry by the time I found it late this morning.

[ruger#1]

its not going to waste there bj , so dont feel bad, more practice and better luck next time, i like the morning hunts, for tracking and finding game, if your hunting in that area ,look for ravens theyll tell you where it is.

[bsa30-06]

hey crappy thing to have happen to you ,but by the sounds of things you made every effort to find that animal and from what i'm reading in your story is you spent alot more time looking for that animal than some people would.Tough lesson to learn but rest assured that this is going to happen to everybody sooner or later.Good luck with the rest of the season.Glad to hear that the no scent stuff from wal-mart seems to work cause i bought some to ,figured for the price it was worth a try.

[rrfred]

Brotherjack, this thread serves as an example of the right things to do, and your ethics and respect for the game; what to do when a shot does not go right; dont give up, a bowhunter is in the making, cheers rrfred :)

[Seabass]

Sorry to hear about losing your animal that sucks. But at least you had the gumpshion to go out and give a bow and arrow a try. And good ethics for trying to look for it too. Although thousands heads of game are taken each year with a bow the margin for error too great for me. I asked my friend of mine if he was heading out on opening day (bow) and he said "Yup, its dear wounding season." With a big grin and laugh. Anyone who bow hunts, (or rifle for that matter) will have some sort of horror story like your own, it just comes with the territory. I just prefer rifles just incase (heaven forbid) my shooting is off a little.

Next time partner, next time.

Cheers

Seabass

[rock]

Brotherjack thats very bad luck, but we have all been there at one time, I'm sure we all have storeys similiar to yours. Keep your chin up and keep huntin it's something we all enjoy.

[todbartell]

sorry to hear about losing the deer, it's never easy to lose an animal but it happens to th best of us if you hunt enough.


good luck this year